SCEA confirms Firmware 2.40 status - it's down, but SCEA working "diligently" on problem

Update: SCEE's made a statement here.

SCEA comms man Patrick Seybold has confirmed on the US PS blog that PS3 Firmware 2.40 has been removed from the company's servers after receiving a "low volume" of complaints regarding installation. The complaint being that the update "bricked" people's consoles.

"As has been reported on many gaming blogs and websites, we have temporarily taken Firmware v2.40 offline," said Seybold. "We’ve received a limited number of calls from consumers experiencing an issue with installing the system software update on their PS3.

"While our consumer services department has seen a low volume of calls on this topic, we are committed to providing the PS3 community with XMB access features delivered in the v2.40 update. We are working diligently to isolate the problem for those few consumers and to identify a solution before we put the firmware back up."

Threads on the official boards began popping up yesterday afternoon saying that installation of the software was literally breaking some customers' PS3s.

SCEA took the decision to remove 2.40 from its servers late last night.

Expect more on this later today.